They piled into the Hummer, this time with less hostility and fanfare. Merlin appeared lost in thought. Normally, Justice wouldn’t go anywhere without being told by Figure to go. There were too many emergencies that could come up that would require a ZoCOS resource, and Justice didn’t want someone to die because he was out joyriding. Something about how somber Merlin was told him he was out on business, just not on Figure’s orders. “Where are we headed?”

Merlin strapped in. “Elm Street.”

“Elm Street?”

“Is that not how it’s pronounced here?” The problem with a frequently sarcastic person was that it was difficult for Justice to understand whether Merlin was honestly confused or just being a jerk.

“If you mean the Red Light District, then no, you’re not mispronouncing it.”

Merlin’s face pinched up like he understood the words but not the meaning behind them. Then he shrugged. “Whatever. Take me to Elm Street.”

The Red Light District was easily the worst part of town. Not because of regular prostitution. After the apocalypse, a few people selling their bodies for cash or trade seemed silly to worry about. No, the Red Light District took on another level of perversion by renting the zombies out as escorts.

Every necrophiliac was up for it; every would-be rapist or murderer showed. It was an unsavory sort of person who went there to partake in the pleasures of the undead. With all of those dangerous and damaged people around, along with the people would prey on them, ZoCOS stayed away. They didn’t have the manpower to clear up a clusterfuck that would involve both sides trying to kill them.

At least, that was the official reasoning.

“What are we here for, Pride? Is one of Mayor Bottom’s pervert buddies holed up there? Is this what he asked you to do?” Merlin turned the corner to the street.

“No. I told you. He didn’t tell me to do anything. He just asked questions.”

Justice parked at the corner as Merlin indicated. The streets were deserted. All the stores and restaurants had been boarded up. In front of them was a dilapidated building that had once been a regular strip mall. Now there was a zombie dancing in Starbucks’s open windows, red light at her back, which made her look even more gruesome with her veins popping out and black holes for eyes.

“Skull fucking! Get your skull fucking here!” The proprietor was nowhere to be seen, just a disembodied voice over the speaker system.

Merlin clutched his stomach as if the words made him ill. Justice’s gaze followed the line of the windows. Almost all of them held dancing zombies, but not long ago they had been at least semirespectable eateries or…something. Window after window showed zombies, gyrating in front of red lights.

Justice parked his car and killed the engine. “Then why are we here? This isn’t how you get your kicks, is it?”

Merlin looked up at him with such violence, the head shaking was redundant. “Don’t be gross.”

Fine, maybe Justice’s insinuation went too far, but he was irritated by the lack of information. “So why are we here?”

“To talk to someone.” Despite directing them there, Merlin didn’t appear to be in any hurry to do that. A reasonable position given the sort of place it was and the kind of people he was likely to meet.

“About anything in particular?”

Merlin glared at Justice. His eyes were tired, cyanotic, as if the life had been drained from him. “No, I thought I’d just come to the scummiest part of town to shoot the shit.”

Justice knew better than to lay a hand on Merlin, but he dearly wanted to. “Hey! I came here with you, you know. I’m your partner. I am not the enemy. Why are we here?”

For a moment, it looked like Merlin wasn’t going to extend the same courtesy and punch him. At least that would’ve been something to break up the mystery and fear. Instead, Merlin exhaled and looked out the windows. “Let me ask you a couple of questions about yesterday. Since we were together, maybe I’m either missing something, or I see something you don’t. Really, I just want to see if we’re on the same page.”

Merlin’s demeanor was odd, sweaty, undone even. Justice had only known him a couple of days, but this seemed out of character. “I was with you the whole time. I don’t know what you think I’d…”

Merlin held up a hand. “Just go with me on this, okay?”

Justice checked the rearview mirror for any loose zombies or muggers. “Fine.”

“Yesterday, the zombies… They were…yeah, they were attacking us, but they were loading into a truck. Did you notice that?” There was nothing shady in Merlin’s tone, which was a nice change. He brought his hair around over his shoulder and plaited it, as if it was something he did when he was trying to figure something out.

“Kind of. I guess they were trying to escape.” Now that he thought of it, he was under the impression that unless they went totally feral, zombies enjoyed their work. If so, where were they headed?

“Yeah. Escape.” Merlin took a deep breath. “Now, I’m kind of new to this whole thing with zombies, but my understanding of them is that they don’t do a lot of thinking. They eat brains, do their old jobs like they’re echoes of things they did when they were alive, but they don’t really do that, do they? Have plans? Complex thoughts?”

Justice’s pulse raced. Wasn’t this a question he’d hoped would be asked? That the answer would be in the positive, particularly when it came to Lewis? “Not as such, no. But there are people who believe that being undead is a temporary condition. They believe it’s a virus or something that people can get over.”

When Justice eyed Merlin again, the man looked utterly miserable. In fact, he looked how Justice was starting to feel as the question sank in. “But if that’s true, then that would mean we killed people, wouldn’t it?”

“No.” Justice hadn’t thought of it that way. What if it was a temporary situation like he’d hoped? He hadn’t considered the ramifications of killing them every day. “I mean, I don’t know, but that’s…different. I mean, they’re trying to kill us.”

Merlin looked out the window and inhaled. “For food. Technically we do the same to animals.”

“No, it’s different. We have higher levels of thought and reason.” Justice leaned closer to Merlin as if he could hear his thoughts.

Merlin turned and raised his brows. “What, we’re so different from them because we can perform menial tasks? Because people have jobs? The zombies have jobs.”

“Yeah, but…” But what? Merlin had a point. And if those zombies were trying to escape and Merlin and Justice stopped them, then what did that mean? Were those zombies people?

“And the military. You didn’t expect the military to show up to bail us out, did you?” Merlin was leaning in, searching Justice’s eyes. So close, his lips looked so soft.

No.

Clearly that thought was his brain’s defense mechanism against coming to the terrible conclusion regarding zombies: if the was a truck for the zombies’ escape and not just someone trying to steal the zombies to work in another factory, then maybe the zombies could make plans.

“No. That’s never happened before.” After spending the morning believing Merlin was the reason they were bailed out, finding out that Mayor Bottom’s daughter was at the factory opened up the possibility that the military’s involvement was not because of Merlin. “But the mayor’s daughter was there. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything but that he was concerned for her safety.”

That seemed to suck the wind from Merlin’s sails. He slouched against the seat. “True. And he did seem happy to see her. Do we know why his daughter was at the dildo factory? Doesn’t seem as if that’s what the kids are doing these days.”

Come to think of it, he didn’t. “No. It’s hard to imagine Mr. Family Values would have a daughter working at a dildo factory. And…you don’t need to go to a dildo factory to get one. Not even these days.” He paused, thinking. “Actually, she probably couldn’t just walk into a sex store. Manned by zombies or not, there are always eyes open. She was probably trying to get a dildo on the down low.”

Whatever theory Merlin had been considering earlier, he seemed to be warming to it again. “I guess if there are no new programs on cable, there’s not much else to do…”

“The news is still on.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “News. No one knows anything. What’s there to report?”

Justice was shocked by Merlin’s dismissiveness. “They can report on which locations to avoid, where there are zombie attacks, what’s clear! Cable news is a valuable resource!”

“Oh sure, one channel all ‘Repent! Repent! Repent!’ and another that says repenting won’t make much difference, and the third that just stands out in the streets and points at things. Some news. I’d rather get off, too.”

He wasn’t wrong, but Justice didn’t like where Merlin’s thoughts were taking them. Before he’d arrived, Justice was happily helping people survive zombies. Now he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. “The news people are investigating what happened.”

“Are they? Because I was watching the news, and it didn’t seem as if anyone was asking why this happened, let alone looked into how to resolve it. It seems to me that three quarters of the population suddenly didn’t require a salary anymore and that outside of losing some people to a few attacks, everyone has been pretty okay with that.”

While the words and implications were horrible, it was the smugness with which Merlin delivered it that really pissed Justice off.

Clearly Merlin had not lost anyone, or he’d know better than to be so glib. As much as he tried to control himself, shaking while he thought of the misery and frustration of having to buy calf brains to feed to a man he wasn’t even in love with anymore, Justice grabbed Merlin by the throat. “No one was okay with their loss. People have grieved and sacrificed to care for family members and friends.”

His eyes were wet, but he wasn’t going to cry, not with Merlin sitting right there.

Merlin blinked but didn’t even try to defend himself. Knowing what Merlin could probably do, Justice was surprised. “Right. Okay. Fair enough. Sorry.” Merlin closed his eyes as if he was waiting to be choked out.

Justice released Merlin and slid back to his side of the Hummer. He took a few deep breaths to pull himself together. Merlin didn’t know. They barely knew each other. Some empathy would’ve been nice, but Merlin didn’t deserve a physical attack. “No. I’m sorry. That was out of line and over the top. You don’t know me. You couldn’t know my life.”

“I got ahead of myself. It’s… I’m working a theory. There’s a guy I know who has lived here a while; I thought maybe he’d have some answers. That’s why we’re here.”

Justice tried not to think too hard about why Merlin would know someone in the Red Light District, even if it were technically the outskirts. It had been just a regular street once upon a time. He assumed Merlin must’ve had contact recently enough to know the person he was seeking was still alive. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.”

~~This series will continue in daily increments through the end of March 2026. After that, it will be once a week on Tuesdays~~